Churches Merge For Multicultural Growth

October 26, 2002|By James D. Davis Religion Editor

A Cooper City congregation will grow several times its size this weekend when 400 members from another church join en masse, along with their pastor.

The merger, starting at a service on Sunday, will unite two churches -- First Baptist of Davie-Cooper City, a largely white congregation, and West Lauderdale Baptist, made up largely of Jamaican-Americans.

The West Lauderdale congregation decided to leave its longtime home in the Melrose Park area of Fort Lauderdale in hopes of expanding a multicultural ministry, said Pastor Jimmy Cox, who will become the pastor for the joined churches.

"We needed to be where multicultural growth was easier, and the environment is better for it in southwest Broward," Cox said on Friday, adding that the West Lauderdale property has been put up for sale.

"A perfect marriage," was the reaction of retired minister Herschel Creasman, interim pastor at the 50-member First Baptist for the past two years. "They needed a place to go, and we needed people."

The formal merger won't take place until Nov. 17, when First Baptist has an installation service for Cox. However, he and his staff will move in this weekend, and he'll preach his first sermon there at an 11 a.m. service on Sunday.

John Fleming, director of missions for the countywide Gulf Stream Baptist Association, will attend the service. So will members of two other congregations -- Hispanic and Haitian -- who use the First Baptist building.

After Cox's sermon, the united church will have a Communion service in English, Spanish and Creole.

"It will be one church, not two," Cox said. "I will be their pastor, and our deacons will be their deacons."

First Baptist moved to its 10-acre site at 8950 Stirling Road in 1994 from downtown Davie but began losing members after its pastor, the Rev. Harold Taylor, retired that year.

Meanwhile, West Lauderdale's home, the Melrose Park neighborhood, became more Caribbean, Cox said. About a month ago, at Fleming's behest, he and Creasman discussed a merger.

Creasman praised Cox as a good fit for the unified church. "I've known him about a decade, since he came here. It's wonderful to get a man with his experience and expertise."

Cox has no immediate plans to revisit the social ministries he tried in the 1990s -- teaching, counseling, foster homes -- which closed over the past year as state funds dried up. This week, he told area businesses he was leaving Lift Up Davie Boulevard, the community association he helped found in 1997.

He said he plans to offer two kinds of services at his new church -- one traditional, one contemporary -- for the varying tastes of his members.

James D. Davis can be reached at jdavis@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4730.